Really? Do some housed people really believe that homeless people have too much food to eat? Actually, yes. And they provide what they consider the evidence, “Of course they have too much food to eat. See how fat they are!”

This myth leaves me stunned because I believe its falsehood is obvious. I’ve had the privilege to work with people in need for over 20 years. Sadly, in all of that time, I have never known a homeless person who was able to eat three healthy meals a day. Really.

As we all know, obesity is an American epidemic. Whether we are housed or homeless, many authorities agree that our diet of high-calorie, unhealthy foods contributes to our obesity. It would appear that many housed people are neither utilizing their kitchens to prepare nutritious foods, nor making healthy food choices at restaurants. Homeless people may have similar nutritional challenges, but for different reasons.

On May 25, 2012, the San Diego County Regional Task Force on the Homeless reported in “A Point-In-Time Assessment of Homelessness In San Diego County — 2012,” that there are a total of 9,641 homeless people within the county. Of this total, 4,374 homeless people are sheltered and often receive their meals from their residential facilities. However, there are at least 5,267 homeless people who are unsheltered and generally live without their own cooking facilities.

Unsheltered homeless people generally eat prepared food that they get from Good Samaritans, at group food service opportunities and, when they have money, from fast food restaurants and/or grocery stores. Pasta, bread and pastries are in abundance. Organic foods as well as raw fruits and vegetables are seldom available. Without healthful foods to eat, homeless people have very few chances of avoiding obesity.

I’m grateful to the following homeless people and service provider for sharing whether they feel that homeless people have too much food to eat.

Annie, an unsheltered homeless person, 45-years-old: “I don’t think that homeless people have too much food. We need more fresh veggies, not canned. But that’s not easy to get.

“There are a lot of church services, but maybe having food every day would be good. But, we don’t have food every day. We’re blessed to have what we get.”

Jon, 49-years-old, lives in his van: “We never have too much food.”

Glyn Franks, a housed person, 62-years-old, founder and president of Second Chances, Bread of Life, and self-described “San Diego’s biggest sinner saved by the grace of God:”

“Our goal is to feed the hungry, tend to the sick, visit prisoners and clothe the naked. We feed the hungry… We fulfill the great commission to share the good news by doing the four things I’ve said to serve the God of love.

“Homeless people don’t have enough food. I believe that homeless people don’t have proper nutrition because they can’t cook. Without cooking facilities, it is difficult to get proper nutrition. Proper nutrition promotes good mental health and the ability to make good decisions.

“I believe that there are also people with roofs that don’t have enough food.

“We serve food to homeless people and housed people Saturday mornings, Thursday at high noon and holidays [in and near Ocean Beach].”

Grace, a vegetarian, almost 53-years-old, lives in her van: “Because I have celiac sprue disease, I cannot eat anything that has gluten grains in it — wheat, rye, oats, barley, spelt. And I’m dairy intolerant… Consequently, most of my money goes to food and dietary supplements.

“Although I have a very limited income, I still feel that it is important to give food to others who need it. Because I’m aware of the need for healthy food and because I’m aware of how little healthy food there is ‘out there,’ I cook and prepare my meals. Because it is hard to make food for one person, I prepare a lot of food and share it with people who need food. Many homeless people who come to me are vegetarians or need healthy food. So, they are very happy to have this food.

“Most homeless people are suffering from malnutrition because of not eating healthy food… I feel that one of the most important things in life is what we ingest, our food.”

John, an unsheltered homeless person, 50-years-old: “For each community, the situation is different. For example, in downtown San Diego, there are limited opportunities to eat indoors. It took me two years to learn where to get food. Several hundred homeless people are usually served at each of the following meals:

“It’s hard to remember all of this. If you don’t know where these meals are, it’s difficult. And just to get to some of these places is an effort without a bus pass. It can take an hour to get to a scheduled meal.

“Sometimes you have to stand in line for hours before a meal, after which there is a religious service for an hour or two and then you get to eat. That means it could take a total of 4 to 5 hours out of your day before you can get a meal indoors.

“I don’t think homeless people are overfed. My opinion is that there is enough food for some of them to survive. Homeless people are more on the hungrier side than the full side. Going to bed hungry is not a nice thing.”

Justin, an unsheltered homeless person, 25-years-old: “This morning I woke up and I didn’t know where I was going to eat. I was hungry. I often get hungry. Everyone gets hungry. We, homeless people, are just like everyone else.”

Do homeless people need money? Of course, housed or unhoused, we all need money. Some housed people believe that homeless people have enough money to get what they need.

However, do homeless people really have enough money to get what they need? I think not. For example, one of the most important things that any person needs is government-issued identification. People need this ID for many reasons, including to get a job, housing, food stamps (after the first month), healthcare, a bank account as well as to get married.

In California, there is a schedule of fees for DMV-issued photo ID cards. There is no fee for senior citizens (age 62 or older) to get these IDs. For everyone else, the fee for California photo ID cards is $26. However, this fee can be reduced to $7 when people meet the income requirements of a public assistance program and complete the ferification for Reduced Fee Identification Card form (DL 937) available from a host of governmental or nonprofit programs.

Homeless people under 62 years of age generally qualify for this $7 California reduced-fee photo ID card.

But do homeless people have $7? And if they need to get $7, how do they get it?

Some homeless people work, indeed, sometimes at more than one job. They may “can,” meaning they recycle. Some homeless people, including unaccompanied youth, go “spanging,” that is, they ask strangers for spare change.

Often they “go signing” or “fly a sign” which means they use a sign indicating their need and request for money. Some musically talented homeless people raise funds by “busking,” a term used for playing music for donations.

Homeless artists sometimes solicit donations for their creations. Some homeless people suffering from disabilities may receive money from government programs. And many homeless people involve themselves in any combination of these efforts to raise funds.

I asked the following people whether they had $7 and, if they didn’t, how they would raise $7. I am grateful to them for their answers to these questions.

Grace, age 52, lives in her RV “I have $7. I am frugal. I get disability and supplement it by making jewelry when I can. These are the two ways I get income.

“$7 is very important. You can do a lot of things with $7. To me, $7 means a meal, gas to move the RV, toilet paper or loads of laundry.

“$7 is a new wardrobe for a homeless person. Recently at the $2 Store, I bought a young homeless woman a dress, a pair of shorts, jeans, a T-shirt — three changes of clothing — all the clothing that you can carry.”

Eric, age 35, homeless “I don’t have $7. To get $7, I have to beg practically all day. I don’t ‘can’ because of germs, it’s dirty.

“Also, I make roses and angelfish that I give out for donations. Sometimes I make money, sometimes I don’t.”

OB Dillon, age “pushing 69,” homeless “I have $7. People give me gifts because they like my guitar playing. That makes me a professional.”

Jon, age 49, lives in his van “I do have $7. To make money, I spange.”

Justin, age 25, homeless “I don’t have $7. What I do and what I’d like to do is different. It’s really demeaning for me. I have to swallow my pride… It would be nice if there were part-time jobs for the homeless to do.”

Manuel, age 30, homeless “I have no money. I’m just looking for work.”

“What would I have to do to get $7? Whatever it takes. I ask around for work. I do yard work. Whatever it takes.”

Anonymous, age 40, homeless “I don’t have $7. What would I have to do to get $7? I’d ask someone — probably have to ask several people. I don’t like to do that. I’d rather do some kind of work.

“How long would it take to get $7? It took me one hour to get $12 to go to a Christian rock concert. I had $13, but I didn’t realize that the ticket was $25. I just told people why I needed the money and I got it right away.

“Getting money can take a dollar an hour, if you’re lucky.”

Bobby, age 41, lives in his car “I always have $7. To get money, I go to work or to the bank. I work for a living, you know.”

J.D., age “almost 39,” homeless “Nope, I don’t have $7. I make hacky-sacks and in four years [displaying his creation] this is the first one I’ve made. I haven’t eaten for a while so I’m hungry.”

Ethan, age 18, homeless “I do have $7. To get $7 I sit around and make jewelry out of bamboo and sell it. It’s pretty much my life right now.”

Oasis, age 49, homeless “I don’t have $7. I make a product out of scrap metal. I take the casings of old 50 caliber bullets and 20-millimeter bullets and I make ‘peaceful pipes.’ I sell them to the public as they walk by. I’m self-employed.”

Christiana, age 26, homeless “I don’t have $7. I manage a band named, ‘Welcome.’ We have our first gig this Thursday at 8pm at Bar 11… It’s $5 to get in. We get a split of the door.”

Jay, age 25, homeless “I don’t have $7. I’m unemployed. In order to get $7, I’d have to get employed.”

Sandy, age 49, homeless “I have $7 now, but I may not have it by tomorrow. I didn’t have a cent to my name yesterday. I was starving. I just asked people on the street for money.

“I get social security but I can’t live on that. I was a homeowner. I left my husband.”

Erick, age 40, homeless “I do not have $7. The $7 itself doesn’t mean anything to me – it’s what I can buy for myself that matters.”

Lena, age 29, housed “I don’t have $7. I have $2 in my guitar case.

“To get $7, I would either clean houses or I play the guitar. Most of my income comes from cleaning other people’s houses. I stay with my husband in a motel that charges $175 a week for our room.”

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet began his first official visit to San Diego on Wednesday, by offering two parts of his three-part symposium, “Compassion Without Borders: Science, Peace, Ethics” by taking part in a panel discussion entitled “The Global Impact of Climate Change” at University of California, San Diego and by giving a public talk entitled, “Cultivating Peace and Justice.”

On Thursday, the Dalai Lama completed his San Diego symposium at San Diego State University by giving the public talk entitled, “Upholding Universal Ethics and Compassion in Challenging Times.”

At the University of San Diego, President Mary E. Lyons presented the Dalai Lama with the USD Medal of Peace.

At the USD Jenny Craig Pavilion before a full house, the Dalai Lama spoke about peace, compassion and nonviolence. He asked what is the meaning of peace? Is it the absence of trouble or violence?

Answering his own question, the Dalai Lama said, “Going deeper into peace … genuine peace must come through inner peace, not through fear.” “Any action that is harmful to others or is in the long run harmful is unjust,” he shared. He explained that “the key thing” is a “warm heart of concern for others’ well being.”

He explained that scientists are beginning to learn about the value of creating an internal balance and a calm mind in helping people recover from illness faster. A calm mind, he said, is the remedy for the loss of hope and a destroyer of fear, distrust and hate.

Stating that the energy to restore our happiness is within ourselves, the Dalai Lama urged further study of the relationship of the mind with the emotions to learn about the destroyers of inner peace.

“You must develop compassion” not pity, he said. Genuine respect is a very noble form of compassion. With compassion, distrust reduces. He advised that we could have a sense of concern for other people because they are human beings just like ourselves. Further, we can respect other people even if they have taken negative actions toward us.

He stressed the value of education through which awareness can be developed, so we can get an understanding of our inner world and achieve inner peace after which justice automatically comes.

Speaking about materiality, the Dalai Lama recognized that material things can bring physical comfort, “but not mental comfort.” He gave as an example that some people have plenty of money and “still are not happy.” No matter what you’re surroundings, he said, you can keep peace of mind.

The twentieth century was a century of blood, fear and violence, said the Dalai Lama. However, he feels that the twenty-first century can be a happy century based on inner peace, “we would have a compassionate world.”

A healthy mind brings a healthy body and a healthy family and a healthy world. He asked that we all think more about these things, but “If you don’t do this, no problem, “I’m leaving the day after tomorrow. It’s your problem.”

Overall, the Dali Lama feels that “humanity is becoming more civilized, more mature.” He recommended taking care of our minds, being compassionate and living more holistically. A bad economy, he said, reminds us to invest in new things … it’s a “good lesson.”

When asked how he remains optimistic when there is so much bad in the world, the Dalai Lama responded, “It is far better to remain optimistic.” When we are optimistic, we “look for ways and means to work on. When you loose all hope, there is no ground making effort.”

Many of us believe that we are compassionate people. But are we really? Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary formally defines “compassion” as the “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.”

In our daily lives, some people think of compassion as “love in action.” Many religions encourage us to strive to be compassionate people and admonish us to “love our neighbor.”

Summarizing these definitions, it would appear that compassion could be defined as “love in action for our neighbor in distress with a desire to alleviate it.” So, whether we are compassionate people depends upon our own attitudes and desires to help.

Personally, I believe that we are all, with the possible exception of a very few, born with compassion. Thus, for most of us, the quality of compassion is already within ourselves from birth — we need only to find and awaken our compassion. Further, as we live our lives we can choose to nurture and expand this quality, as we are encouraged by many religions, if not all, to do.

But, what about the “neighbors” for whom we have compassion? Do our neighbors have any role in our developing or exercising our compassion? It would appear, at least from the above discussion, that our neighbors do not. However, what our neighbors do, how they appear and what we expect from them may influence how easy it is for us to exercise and develop our compassion.

The easiest example of this is the whole topic of babies. It has been said that babies are born adorable and loveable, at least to their parents, so that their parents will take care of them regardless of how much work is involved. And most of us know and expect that there is a tremendous amount of work involved in caring for a baby.

Then we have the examples of children and adults with special needs who cannot take care of themselves and must rely on the compassionate treatment from others. Their caretakers know and expect that their jobs will be challenging and yet, ultimately rewarding.

There are also those people among us who have suffered a personal or family loss. These losses can be traumatic events affecting people’s physical, mental and emotional well-being. Included within the losses that people can suffer is the loss of everything people once possessed. For most people becoming homeless can be a traumatic event.

For whatever the cause, homeless people have suffered the loss of what most of us consider our human basic needs — they have lost their personal shelter, their expectation of having food on a regular basis and most of their clothing.

Whether homeless people are sheltered or unsheltered, they have, for whatever length of time, lost their personal experiences of having their own homes. When people lose their experiences of having their own homes, they may also lose their hope for having their own homes again.

Even their feelings of self-worth may be negatively affected by the trauma they experience as a result of their homelessness. For example, a homeless friend of mine recently said, “No matter what you say or how you treat me, I know that I’m at the bottom of the food chain.”

As with any of our responses to traumatic events, the hopefulness experienced by homeless people by virtue of becoming homeless may be expressed physically, mentally and/or emotionally. The results of the traumatic event of becoming homeless may also be expressed by some homeless people through the misuse of substances, including cigarettes.

In addition, because we as a society have provided few public bathrooms, showers and even fewer public laundries, many homeless people may not have access to facilities where they can perform acts of basic hygiene. The results are obvious — homeless people often appear disheveled.

Finally, we housed people often expect homeless people to “pick themselves up by their own bootstraps” and become housed again. Please see my article, Homelessness Myth #15: “Just Pull Yourself Up By Your Own Bootstraps,” in this regard.

Because many homeless people are and remain unhoused, our expectations of them to become housed, among other things, are not met.

It is basic human nature that when people do not meet our expectations of them, we may become disappointed and/or resentful. Without greater understanding of ourselves and others, we are unlikely to extend compassion to those whom we feel have failed to live up to our own expectations, who have disappointed us or to whom we feel resentful. Hence, we housed people with unreasonable expectations for homeless people may feel disappointed or resentful of them because they have failed to live up to our unreasonable expectations.

It is because of what homeless people do, how they appear and what we expect from them, that we may find it challenging to have compassion for them.

However, “our neighbors” includes everyone. Therefore, I believe that the test of true compassion is whether we can care for all of our neighbors, including our homeless neighbors whom we may find the most challenging to help.

At 4 a.m. on Friday morning, January 27th, hundreds of volunteers left deployment centers throughout San Diego County to count homeless people. Called, “We All Count,” this annual enumeration of homeless people in the county is run by the San Diego Regional Task Force on the Homeless.

Beginning in 2005, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has mandated that, agencies receiving HUD funding needed to count the homeless people in their cities on a bi-annual basis. One of the goals of this point in time count is to provide a snap shot of homelessness during the last week of January every two years. The results of this count are used to justify the funds being sent to the recipient agencies to help homeless people within their cities.

A homeless friend and I were two of these enumerators. We drove up and down designated streets and alleys of Ocean Beach, San Diego, counting homeless individuals and vehicles potentially housing individuals. The third category we could have counted were “hand-built structures,” but we did not see any during our drive.

During our over two-hour drive in Ocean Beach, we counted over 60 homeless individuals and 100 vehicles which were potentially housing individuals.

Although the count may sound very dry to some of us, I was touched by a number of things we saw. For example, in one alley, we saw a carport where four homeless individuals were sleeping a person-apart from each other. They were sleeping on the cement with apparently no ground cover and no blankets.

Currently, volunteers, including myself and my homeless friend, are conducting surveys of homeless people on behalf of the Regional Task Force on the Homeless. These surveys are intended to ask those people who were homeless on the same morning as the count specific questions eliciting personal information about them, questions about what are their sources of support and questions about why they are homeless. In return for answering the over 100 questions presented to them, the homeless person receives a $10 gift card to Subway. All surveys are intended to be completed with days of the count.

Homelessness is a reality that is challenging for me to fathom, especially seeing homelessness close-up, here in America, the land of plenty.

JA: Yes, you could say that. I feel that his life is such a gift to me. And despite the physical separation from Lar, I don’t have the feeling of being without him, unless I choose to. I can always have that joy of being with Lar, a feeling of being even closer than in our physical life together, if I so choose.

CS: Can you share something about your life?

JA: Of course. I am sharing this because Lar and I are part of the oneness that includes the reader and all of humanity.

On April 26, 1932, I was born in Sharpsville, PA. When I was three years old, my parents and I moved to Germany. I had a wonderful childhood in the small town of Stockach. My friends and I would go into the forest to pick berries. We would make visits to the Catholic Church, roller skate in the streets and toboggan in the snow.

I was brought up Catholic and enjoyed reading the stories of the saints, especially the martyrs. I admired their courage and that they gave their lives for God. I asked myself whether I would have the courage to give my life for God.

In the Spring of 1953, I married my husband, George Argoud, in San Diego, California. Together, we had five children. I worked so my husband could go to medical school in Switzerland. In one of my jobs, I worked as a secretary for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. After my husband graduated, we came back to the United States where he practiced medicine.

When George and I divorced in 1982, I felt that I had fallen into a deep hole. I just couldn’t get out. I thought my life was falling apart. My marriage… five kids. I asked, “What is the purpose of life? Who am I? Where Did I come from?”

I found refuge in meditation. I had a room built in the back of my home to be a meditation place and my meditation group met there. One day my meditation group discussed doing something to help homeless people in San Diego.

I just felt that was for me. So, I put a small ad in the San Diego paper that read, “San Diegans Help the Homeless” with my telephone number.

There was just one call as a result of my ad. The caller said that if I wanted to do anything to help homeless people that I should call Larry Milligan and he gave me Lar’s number.
I called the number, spoke to Lar and agreed to meet him the next day at the local bookstore. I told Lar that I could only be interested in helping homeless people if we regarded them with the greatest respect because as Jesus said, “What you do the least of them, you do to me.”

Before we parted, Lar said to me, “I’m ready for a relationship.”

I said, “Only a spiritual one.”

He didn’t say anything. It didn’t seem to stop him.

So I began going to the weekly meetings where Lar and homeless people met. I could see that Lar was a leader who asked everyone to participate in the meeting equally. However, he did not put himself on a pedestal — that impressed me.

For over 10 years, Lar and I served food twice a week to homeless people in Balboa Park and also at the Lutheran Church. Later on other people joined us in this effort. Lar conducted hunger strikes and we had peaceful demonstrations to bring attention to the issues of homelessness.

One of our major concerns was the criminalization of the act of sleeping in public because there was not enough room in the shelters for every homeless person in San Diego. As a result of our efforts, the case of Spencer v. City of San Diego was filed in 2004. When the case settled in 2007, homeless people could sleep on public property at night without being subject to fine or arrest.

[In November 2010, the settlement agreement in Spencer v. City of San Diego was modified so that a homeless person can be fined or arrested if a police officer offers his or her an available shelter bed within five miles and he or she chooses to decline the bed.]

Because of our activities to help homeless people, Lar and I had numerous encounters and a wide variety of relationships with individuals and groups at the national and local levels, including City authorities, the police and the press.

On September 8, 2009, Lar was the recipient of a lung transplant. For the next three and a half weeks, Lar was in a coma. While I was grateful that he was alive, I took refuge in finding that space where I could feel at one with him.

When Lar awoke from his coma, he told me that no matter how much he loved me, he hadn’t wanted to come back from that place that was so peaceful and absolutely beyond description.

He said, “I hope you’re not angry with me.”

I told him, “Of course not, no one would want to come back from there.”

About two years after his surgery, Lar became seriously ill with pneumonia. One day he said to me, “I want to be with you in eternity.”

I said, “I will always be with you.”

I experienced an indescribable feeling of communion.

When Lar passed, somehow I had the sense to take refuge in that place where we had been as one in our meditation. And somehow his passing was not real to me because in that space he was one with me.

Now when thoughts come to me about him, I come to a place we enjoyed together. When I read his poetry or I listen to the songs he loved, I never fail to take refuge to be with him in that space. I marvel and it never ceases to amaze me that I am so much a part of him and he a part of me in that oneness. All the years of meditation had given me that space.

In 2005, Lar wrote Love Poem to Joanna to me. I share part of it with you now.

I’m just right here. In thoughts of life Never to be changed. Thinking of the times we gave Serving each other. No, love can never be rearranged And someday death will sweetly come.